


Light Marks the Dawn

by paraparadigm, polymorphic



Series: Enspirited [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst and Humor, Avvar Culture and Customs, Cultural Differences, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dragon Age Lore, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Gallows Humor, Grief/Mourning, Healing, M/M, Medium Burn, Mostly Canon Compliant, Multiple Pairings, Mystery, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other: See Story Notes, POV Multiple, Plotty, Post-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Jaws of Hakkon DLC, Pre-Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser DLC, Rare Pairings, Slice of Life, Slow Romance, Strangers to Lovers, With original additional lore, occasional smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:27:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27378691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paraparadigm/pseuds/paraparadigm, https://archiveofourown.org/users/polymorphic/pseuds/polymorphic
Summary: Gyda Myrdotten, Stone-Bear Hold’s mortuary specialist, finds her mind troubled by a recent streak of misfortune plaguing her kinsmen—one that doesn’t seem to resolve itself with Hakkon’s release. A god Gyda has grown uncomfortably close to offers counsel: whoever had contained Hakkon did not pass into the Land of Dreams, despite what the lowlanders claimed. Sent by the Thane to ascertain that nothing threatens the Hold, and to ensure the dead do not become restive, Gyda stumbles upon yet another Inquisitor—this one, straight out of history. But the Inquisition's request that its new allies shelter the mysterious guest could spell trouble for the Hold...on both sides of the Veil.
Relationships: Ameridan/Female Avvar, Ameridan/Gyda Myrdotten, Ameridan/Original Female Character, Bram Kenric/Eustace Morris, Lace Harding/Original Female Character(s), Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Series: Enspirited [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648228
Comments: 25
Kudos: 14





	1. Ch 1

**Author's Note:**

> This work is intended for mature audiences only. Content warnings include graphic depictions of violence; themes centered on death, dying, and bereavement; and fictional social dynamics typical of Dragon Age lore. Sexual content depicted on the page can be explicit, but it is always consensual. This work might include oblique references to sexual violence. While we follow and elaborate on DA lore, this story will not be following the game’s main storyline. Additional content warnings may be added to the notes at the beginning of individual chapters. Please read them!
> 
>   
>   
> Current POV + small time skip
> 
>   
> POV switch, current time
> 
>   
> POV switch + small time skip  
> 

The feathered dawn clouds had swelled with frosty pink, and Gyda sighed her inquietude and stretched her tired limbs. Never, in all the years she had stood in vigil on the wind-carved plateau, had the Lady of the Skies refused an offering. 

Never, in any case, so definitively. 

She reached for the small satchel at her belt for what felt like the hundredth time since the previous evening, and she cast the bones onto the slab of dun-colored sandstone at her feet. Once more they scattered flat and shapeless—and in as meaningless a pattern as a tumbleweed draws in the dust, leaving no sign other than its passage and the wind’s image. 

The gods stood silent on this side. 

She had wedged the pelts of the three Dream-Touched guardians into a crevice between the rocks, which would shelter them from rain and nosing critters, though their physical shape wouldn’t matter as much now that the gift had left its imprint in the Twilight. Still... Caladan’s soul was the rare and precious kind, marked for return to the Hold, so Gyda had been punctilious about the rites—or as punctilious as the old hunter’s deteriorated state allowed. The delay had rankled, but there wasn’t much she could do about that now. 

The memories she had of him floated by like ice at late thaw. It was never the grand moments that clung to her, but the quiet ones, those that hinted at the shape beneath the flesh. His love of whittling little bears and rams and owls from driftwood, to be handed out to the Hold’s kids with great fanfare and not a little bickering. His terrible memory for songs that led him to make up new verses—hilarious, and ambiguously raunchy—on every feast day. His quiet, unassuming counsel to the younger, still hot-headed hunters. She wondered idly whom his soul would choose should it find its way back, but there were no babes on the way as far as she could tell, and that in itself was less than heartening. The bones had kept their silence on that subject as well, so either the Hold’s spring crop of new couples wasn’t getting busy, or else Rilla needed appeasing again, but either way, that was not for her to mind. 

She had laid out what remained of the old hunter’s body in the shadow of the cliff, where the messengers would be sheltered from the harsh winds of the Basin. She cleaved the limbs as she always did, right elbow joint first, then following the sun. And still, above her, against the deep lapis blue, no dark specks circled on tightening coils. 

The Twilight beckoned, and not just because the exhaustion lay on her like a heavy pelt. 

Something had gone awry with Stone-Bear Hold, some subtle ripple she couldn’t quite follow. Whatever it was, it had fouled up weeks ago, if not months, and been allowed to fester. Finn’s broken leg was only the latest, and if she cared to trace the chain of causes backwards, the small snags wove into a path—Runa’s close brush with the gurgut; Sigrid’s failure, catastrophic yet perhaps not entirely unexpected—though her eventual departure with the Inquisition had been one unpleasant surprise; not to mention the mess with Storvacker. 

She took no pleasure in Finn’s familial loss—sometimes a name was all one had left—but the one they called the Inquisitor had remained steadfast, walking the path she had been shown without improvisation or imposition. As tempting as it was to lay the blame at their visitor’s feet, the elf had abided by the Hold’s customs. The Master of the Hunt had received the offerings and brought them to Gyda himself, though the humid chill blowing from the bay had worsened his limp—and still, no messengers came. Then again, it was she, Gyda, who had set their guest on her course, exploiting a technicality. As if such paltry deceptions could stay hidden. 

Either the gods had taken umbrage, or they hadn’t. Shuffling accusations around would do little more than muddy the waters.

She had hoped that the streak of misfortune would ease after the last of the Hakkonites had been dealt with—the foulness they had wrought still churned her stomach, even though Hakkon had been freed at last. But a week after the lowlanders had returned victorious, one of the winter storage huts had caught fire from an errant spark, losing the Hold a month of provisions. The summer was still young, but it wouldn’t linger.

The Hold Beast had paid her penance, and Korth had been mollified with ram’s blood and malachite, and the verses sung in his honor rang deep in the mountain’s bones. Yet here she was, alone, not a single bird in sight to carry Caladan’s final offering to the Lady.

She rose and stretched again, then drifted, listless, to where her campfire had dwindled to a heatless flicker. She wouldn’t sleep. But, perhaps she could doze, gliding across the shallows of the Land of Dreams like a water strider. Just long enough to…

 _No._

As if Sigrid botching her initiation and clinging to the god wasn’t enough of a deterrent. _With gods, be weightless, like a dandelion seed_. It was for the Augur to think on such matters. She had made her choice all those years ago, and there would be no unmaking it now. It was one thing to seek the gods’ guidance in her craft—a liberty the Augur hadn’t discouraged, exactly, but only because she had been careful with what she permitted herself. 

She would not wade beyond that.

The stunted pine beneath which she had left her bedroll rustled with the morning wind’s brackish breath. Gyda lay down on the furs and allowed for her eyes to fall into the bottomless blue, where her thoughts could free themselves from her grasp and drift away like clouds.

At length, the sky turned from lapis to jade.

The god came to her as it always did: a soft golden shimmer at the periphery of her vision. If she moved her head, it would resolve into the shape of a warrior—always with the same face, though now with the years to match hers, marking the passage of time ever since the Hold had sung it back. She knew the semblance it chose by heart—and her heart had kept on singing with it, in ways she didn’t care to examine too closely—so today, the glimmer would have to suffice. 

_“You called, Pathfinder, yet you do not wish to see me.”_

It wasn’t easy to decide which emotion was dominant whenever the gods chose to speak. They cast words the same way she scried, for signs of something other than themselves to hold their shape. Yet, over the slow years of their companionship, she had learned this one’s inflections as intimately as it had learned the whirlpools of her thoughts. Its previous form had not chosen a name before it fell. Yet it returned, guided back with painstaking care. In its rebirth, it had chosen the safety of stability over the freedom of underdeterminacy. If she allowed herself to go deeper—which she absolutely wouldn’t, at least not today—it would resolve itself into the face Meingar might have grown into, seventeen years after his death: the shape of a young man now in his prime, who, with only a small group of hunters even more yellow-beaked than he had been, averted a raiding party from a rival hold before, he too, succumbed to his wounds. 

She had cared for his body—her very first offering, when she was sixteen, her magic still rocky and untempered. The Lady had carried him away on a cloud of blue-black wings and blood-speckled throats, and Gyda had tried to swallow her tears until the old Pathfinder lost her patience and gently scolded her. _You think the earth can’t bear your salt, child_ ? _Quit this nonsense and give it a good cry already._

She had known his likeness in death as she had in life, and his soul had eased itself into the Land of Dreams with a brush of brilliant gladness against her own—he had died quickly and with courage—and maybe something a bit cheeky on the underside of it, like a stolen kiss. He would not be reborn into the clan. Instead, the god had taken his shape and his memories, the first of its brethren to claim a name from Stone-Bear Hold in a generation. And when it chose to give of itself at her initiation so that the Twilight would enter her as surely as she would enter it—and so neither would ever be lost without the other—he came to her as Meingar Fair-Oar.

He had taught her to understand the subtle intricacies of the threshold state, and in so doing, allowed her to become what she was now—the one to ease the souls on their final journey, and to prepare the offerings. He had quieted her chaotic sparks with encouragement and humor, and he had fanned her flames with steadfastness and… well. More humor. 

Case in point, here she was—a fretful, muddled mess—and the god had come, despite the risks, to disentangle her knots. Taking the piss all the while, of course.

“I _do_ want to see you,” Gyda muttered, trusting him to know the performative petulance for what it was. She never allowed herself anything more direct lest she burden him with too much of herself— _with gods, be mountain quartz, be gray and flavorless like rain—_ but she couldn’t quite help scattering the small vestiges of her affection, like tiny offerings, to complement the formal ones she always left when the sun rose red and fat.

When he spoke again, his voice had softened. _“The one who knows himself as Hakkon scattered many of my brethren, heartling, for it is great with Anger, and its appetites are greater still. It will take time for the paths to settle.”_

She blew out a breath, still refusing to turn her head to face him fully, though it was tempting. So the Lady’s refusal was not part of some bigger weave, and she could stop gnashing her teeth over it like a hungry gurgut worrying a ram carcass. 

“T _he birds will come by evening.”_ He drifted a bit, and even with her eyes trained on the zenith, she could still see his outline. _“But there is another matter to fret over, if it will ease your mind to have it occupied. An ending at the edges, deflected from its source, too far from our demesne for me to ascertain its nature, but you would do well to heed its consequences.”_

Gyda succumbed to temptation and turned her head—and regretted it immediately.

He shone like white gold, like sunlight through fog, and his features were as achingly familiar as they were beautiful. She quickly turned her face back to the jaded skies. “Should we expect these consequences to reach the Hold?” Then, hastily, she added, “if so, the Augur should know of this.”

 _“For now, it is enough that you do.”_ He rippled closer. _“The Augur’s soul is still bereft of its seedling, and thus it yearns for its next reflection.”_ Something like concern crept into his voice. _“Though it remains to be seen whether his choice shall prove wiser than the previous one.”_

“He already has a candidate in mind to replace Sigrid, from what I hear, but there hasn’t been time to go through the proving rites, since all the...” She trailed off.

“ _Would that it had been you, heartling._ ”

Her stomach lurched and warmth spread through her limbs. He’d never been quite so direct before.

“Is there something that concerns you about the selection?”

The god didn’t answer right away, and there was a deliberative quality to his silence. Something brushed her hand—a warm, electric sizzle—and Gyda shivered and fixed her gaze on an eddy of green above, trying to ignore the lingering tingle the best she could. 

“ _When the time comes, I will offer myself again, Pathfinder. I have not done so since you. It should not be delayed much longer.”_

Gyda had little to say to that. She forced her mind to hush, pulling the drawstrings tight on the turbulent mess that coiled inside like angry adders. _With gods, be placid like the stillest pool._

Sage advice, of course—and about as practical as tying an air-filled bladder to a fish to keep it from drowning, for all she managed to heed it. As far as gods were concerned, burying one’s thoughts would only multiply them. Better to release the hidden things into the faded skies and watch them glide, like birds, to vanish out of view.

But then, she’d have to look at them herself.

“Seventeen years have passed in the Waking, Valor.” She used his twilit name sparingly—it would have been easier to address him as the Augur did, and as he was remembered in the Hold’s offerings, as Meingar Fair-Oar, patron of small boats on turbulent seas and daring but ill-advised ventures. The impersonal address favored by the lowlanders gave her a queasy jolt, but in this case, the occasion called for it. “Why now?”

There had never been secrets between them unless one counted those kept out of mutual regard. He could have given her his full response, but it would have taken more closeness than either of them had allowed themselves in nearly two decades. Still, the answer came over her—neither insistent nor invasive, but a delicate little echo. 

Determination. Unease. Trepidation. Guilt, or something like it. A strange desire to feel the passing of time as he once had, on the inside of her skin. Loneliness — he was still their only Valor, regardless of other names, though the Thane sometimes told stories from when she was a young girl, when there had been two. More remained unsaid, but he neither shared it nor hid it, letting her intuit its shape.

“Is the match to your taste?” she asked, and tacked another regret to her list, along with a pinch of mortification. _With gods, be silent as first snow._ What had gotten into her? 

She waited out his pondering, hoping he would disregard the mistake and forego the answer. The gentler gods sometimes let such slip-ups drift beyond the circle of their presence. The bald elf who had trailed after the Inquisitor had pelted Gyda with questions about the Hold’s “beliefs,” and he had insisted on referring to the gods as spirits—as did the rest of the itinerant lowlanders. He didn’t seem to grasp, or care, about the difference, like a small child unable to distinguish between a wild hawk and a falcon on the glove. He had been most interested in gods he had called Wisdom and Learning, but she had always known them as White Owl and Svar Swift-Mind, for such were the names they had taken long before she was born. Sometimes, when they waxed whimsical or especially magnanimous, they would materialize a misbegotten utterance for their own amusement, or for their interlocutor’s edification. She still recalled one particularly memorable visit where Svar had turned her barrage of questions about barrier magic into a pile of squeaking nugs and set them loose upon the paths.

Her god was many things. Gentle wasn’t one of them. _“No,”_ he said, stripping the word of inflection like a bear strips a tree of its bark. _“It is not to my taste, heartling._ ”

He could have said more, but he spared her. 

Beyond the threshold, a distant caw announced a messenger.

“ _I_ _t is time for you to return.”_

Gyda opened her eyes.

The birds scattered Caladan by early afternoon, earlier than Meingar Fair-Oar had promised, but their numbers were diminished, and even the messengers she knew by sight seemed unusually skittish. She found the hunter’s soul dreamside, though not until the moon had cut a silver path across the dark expanse of the bay below. He appeared a little lost, but not fretful, and she ushered him to the Dream-Touched gift, its opalescent shine soft but steady, like a quiet candle. Lady willing, the beacon would hold, and it would draw him back when the time came, provided she renewed the offerings over however many weeks or months it took, with milk and blood and felandaris. When news of a coming child reached her, she would make the journey back to the plateau—though death and routine maintenance would likely bring her there before it—and she would guide Caladan back, as long as the Augur vetted the return as auspicious. 

Until then, she would heed Meingar’s warning. Perhaps whatever consequences he spoke of wouldn’t reach—though it was plain they already had, and his reticence to bring it to the Augur directly left her ill-at-ease. 

By the time Gyda stumbled back to the Hold, bleary with fatigue, and the stench of death on her so thick that the snoufleur she had chanced upon hightailed into the bushes, Gyda was certain of two things. First, that she was in desperate need of a bath. And second, that the massive, raucous feast the Hold had apparently staged in her absence was the very last thing she wanted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‣ Gyda [pronounced Gee-Dah] is a reprise of Gyda Myrdotten, the mortuary ritual specialist from Stone-Bear Hold  
> ‣ The events of this story are happening after the completion of the DLC
> 
>  **Chapter Credits:**  
>  Lead Writer—Paraparadigm  
> Co-Writer—Eranehn


	2. Ch 2

Awareness crept over him slowly, scrabbling at the edge of his consciousness like a swarm of furtively delving insects. The sensation gave him a chill—despite all of his victories, his aversion to creeping things never truly left him—and he opened his eyes to escape their infernal scratching.

He _what_? 

The eyes— _his_ eyes—snapped shut again. Perhaps he had been mistaken. It was dark, and...his thoughts skittered sideways, unable to explain the very physical sensation of hard stone leeching the warmth from his assbones.

Ass _cheeks_. 

He sprang to his feet, or tried, but his limbs merely laughed and deposited him into a numb heap on the floor. He'd laugh, too, except his throat felt like he was breathing lungfuls of sand.

“Valor?” he croaked. “I could use some fire, old friend, just a small one. No larger than a house.”

Orange flared beyond his lids, and when next he thought about opening his eyes, he made sure he was good and ready.

He regretted it anyway.

It was all there. The same dark walls, the same harsh angles, the same decaying echoes of caustic Tevene magic which resonated through the structure like the Fade-preserved cry of some miserably killed beast—he lacerated his eyes on them all, and still they failed to bleed. He was clearly alive, however; somehow, someway, and rather unfortunately, he thought.

He had ended his life well. He subdued the demon, he left a way out, he averted disaster to his ally’s people and purchased survival for his own. That’s what he had thought. It was a good death, a hunter’s death. His friends and comrades were with him until the last. Their desperation and blood, the tears carefully saved for later—they were all of them worth the price, and they paid it eagerly, their resolution worthy of pride. He had no regrets before the gods, nor before Andraste, Maker-Bride. He had succeeded in the bare minimum, so why?!

 _Fly straight and do not waver. Bend but do not break. Receive mindfully the gifts of the hunt._ He’d followed Vir Tanadhal since he was a boy, and he suspected it was not Andruil who punished him, but rather someone with a far more twisted sense of humor. The Maker, perhaps. Or—he flopped over. 

“Is it a spirit’s fault? If so, I would like a word with it.” 

Surely Falon’din would not have rejected him if he had actually died. Valor didn’t reply, but flickered contentedly, instead, and Ameridan sat up to have a closer look. Strange for his spirit companion to _become_ a spell, rather than cast it. 

He crawled closer, ignoring the rusty popping of his grating joints. The closer he got, the hotter the spirit became, just as he expected. Then, he expected something different. The flame froze, radiating its heat and light without the slightest flicker, then became cool in mirror to his focus, like a glowing stone.

“You are not Valor,” he mused, prodding the fire-shape with his finger, “though I thank you, friend. Come out of there. I can maintain it, now.”

The fire shape poofed into a whiff of green and withdrew from his finger, then floated backwards and wavered, wisp-like and curious. Ameridan inhaled through his nose. He drew some Fade through the Veil and allowed it to circulate in his veins alongside his breath, then exhaled with a guiding thought. A fire rune appeared beneath him, modified so as not to explode, probably, and soon his quickly warming backside began to relax.

The rune’s orange glow did nothing to help the decor. He closed his eyes again.

He was often considered impulsive, but never hasty, or at least he hadn’t been for thirty-some years. _Eight-hundred_ thirty-some years. Still, it was all he could do to bend his mind to the present instead of acting on his urge to abandon his body and run screaming into the Fade. If only he traveled deep enough, he could reach Telana and the others, as Dirthamen had found Falon’din—either that, or the Beyond would absorb his paltry existence as surely as grass absorbs a carcass. Either way, he would find the peace they had sought to share, the collective cost of which had been so high that they each put up their own blood for payment. Only his was left outstanding.

The glow beyond his lids turned muddy green, and Ameridan opened his eyes to find the spirit had leaned in, pressing nose to...nose? He shuddered.

“Friend,” he choked, trying not to laugh. “Wear nothing but a nose if you’d like, but you still have to follow the rules. No sticking it in another person’s face or his business.”

The weird proboscis poofed from the spirit’s encephalic projection, and the creature spun once, then began shifting restlessly back and forth across the room. His eyes followed it flatly. “A _little_ nosiness,” he added, “may sometimes be welcomed.” 

It perked and came zooming back. His hand went up instinctively, bringing it to a streaking halt in front of his outstretched palm. Bits of it drifted past before curling back around and wafting into itself. “Wondrous—you’re newly formed, yet without brakes!” 

He lowered his hand, and it began playing around at a comfortable distance, popping first into the shape of wagon brakes, then borrowing a large variety of wheels from his memory and trying them on like socks. It seemed eager, somehow—perhaps it could help him discern who, or what, had kept him off his rest, and why. He must at least consider that untimely intervention before deciding whether he ought to live, or finish dying. 

His mind became still, and so did the spirit. 

It was like that with him. No matter how bad things got, following a plan always freed his thoughts of disarray and allowed them to flow from one point to the next, from strike to fluid strike, focused like the staff-casting forms he’d practiced from the age of five. The little spirit drew closer, and he took heart in its presence. Perhaps the gods hadn't deserted him after all.

So what _had_ happened in his final moment? He had been feeding the last of his strength to Hakkon’s bindings—bindings which were in danger of snapping, thanks to his spell’s disruption by a group of culty Avvar—Hakkonites, as he recalled. They had introduced cracks to the dam he’d erected against time, and he’d been mending them for a day without rest. They began clumsy, unpracticed, and at first his strength to draw the Fade had been enough, but soon even that had been exhausted, and he was forced to draw every last scrap of magic from his body—depleting his blood, skin, and bones, even his deepest marrow. A self-cannibalistic technique which was, of course, fatal, but what choice did he have? 

Except he wasn’t dead.

His brows drew together. He had visitors, too—friendly ones, a balm for his final moments, he’d thought. They had destroyed the Hakkonites, which brought no small degree of satisfaction, frozen and helpless as he was to vaporize them for himself. He’d met his successor—a devotee of Mythal, according to her vallaslin. She was scrawny, and young, and her eyes were far too controlled to be possessed of natural calm. He had grinned at that—looked familiar—and thought it fitting. A tame Inquisitor would hardly be equal to the paths upon which they were loosed, like hounds, to chase away monsters. There was her brother, as she had named him, a tall, classic beauty who looked more bard than hunter, although he had taught the Avvar how vicious elven beauties could be once provoked. His knives had flashed gallantly at her back, while—ah yes, there was another elf, this one bald and unmarked by the gods. He had coaxed the Fade where Ameridan would draw it, and indeed, where the Inquisitor bargained with it, although their staff-casting forms were familiar. She wielded Fire whilst the bald one wielded Spirit, always leaving the next step open for the other to leap upon, working together like wolves. And the Seeker…! She had been valiant, unstoppable, her face filled with disgust at the very necessity of her being there! How _disappointed_ she looked! Ameridan's voice cracked with delighted laughter. 

Was it the titles which informed a certain type, or was it the types which informed the titles? The Seeker had been Haron’s counterpart in spirit. 

After the battle, the two mages wove together a rudimentary staircase so everyone could speak face to face...what _had_ he been doing that far off the ground? Ah yes, he had lured the dragon into chasing him up the wall via a narrow ledge, but miscalculated a wee bit, almost losing his...well, they would have all laughed instead of pitying him, so there was that. He had leaped for the life of his future children, anyway, then landed on a stalagmite and triggered the spell. 

“The look on that dragon’s face,” he told the spirit, wiping his eyes. “Priceless. I hope Valor saw; we had a bet.” 

The spirit zoomed around, then zipped back, and this time it was able to stop without losing half its form in the process. Ameridan pretend-patted it, then smiled when it quivered happily at his intended contact. “Well done, Formling. Can you help with the rest?” 

It returned to the shape of wagon brakes, then began hopping around in delighted circles. Its bouncing seemed rather affirmative, as far as clunking went—a probable yes, he thought. He still had no idea what to ask of it.

He and the dragon had experienced no passage of time once he finished the seal, nor did they experience each other, nor any turning of the world. Their isolation was so profound that it felt like only a heartbeat had passed, when in reality it had been, what, an age? Two? He awoke expecting to find that Drakon’s forces had arrived to save him in return—he’d sent Telana, injured, out for help, and it had stood a chance, he thought, or the fool woman never would have left—

His thoughts crashed and slipped sideways, then stumbled downhill like a lamed horse. 

_Do not waver._ He repeated the words until his hands relaxed. _Bend like the bow that never breaks._ Extraneous memories were extraneous. In this moment, he needed one which could advance his plan, one which could illuminate the mystery of his final breath—or what should have been. Something about his visitors’ faces niggled at him, and he sat chewing on his lip while the wagon brakes tumbled cheerfully around the somber Tevene floor.

“Dirthamen guide me along secret paths,” he chanted softly. The melodious speech of his homeland echoed throughout the severe room and returned to him, utterly rejected by walls which could bear no music. “May Fear become Care in my presence, as once it had in yours. May Deceit become Discretion. Ravens lead me through the shifting haze. Knowledge for knowledge, mystery for mystery, wisdom for wisdom.” 

The rote familiarity and tempo of the prayer focused and calmed his mind. He had been feeding the last of his magic to the bindings. He could feel his heartbeat slowing. His bones were hollowing, his mind was Fading. The Inquisitor’s eyes had been tight. She wanted to knock him out of the spell, but she had known better, known his wishes better. The bald one’s eyes had followed her like an albatross, alighting unobserved, and Ameridan knew her to be his wayward ship on tempestuous seas. His face thawed in that moment; he had observed and interpreted her expression. Then his head snapped toward Ameridan; something had caught his gaze. The Inquisitor’s eyes widened; surprise pushed away all of her emotions. There was a flash of light, and—and the next thing he knew, he was freezing his assheeks off in the dark.

“Are you finished bouncing around?” he asked the Formling. It had rolled even closer as he focused, and was now nearly touching his knee. It gave a happy little flop. “That is not an answer I can understand. I do not wish to force you, which means I must first understand you, yes?” 

It poofed back into its proper form and hovered quietly. Ameridan waited while it formulated a reply, doing his best to ignore the steady heaviness creeping into his limbs. How long had it been since he’d last eaten or had a drink of water? It must have been a few hours before triggering the spell, and he had fought hard, and had been fighting hard for days before that. 

There was a tap on his leg, and he looked up. There, joined at the shoulder, were his successor and the bald elf, with only the two arms to share between them. Ameridan leaned forward excitedly. “This is a yes! Will you show me their last expressions, the reflections in their eyes?” 

The two lit up with joy, and he choked down a laugh. The jovial expression looked natural on the one, but certainly not the other. Everything about their faces was just as he remembered, right down to the smallest detail, from the color of the Inquisitor’s intractable mane to the scar on the bald one’s forehead. He focused on the memory of their surprised faces, and the facsimiles shifted in accordance to his wish. “That’s it,” he encouraged the spirit as their faces tightened with shock. “Show me what you saw.” 

He leaned closer—the Inquisitor’s green-hazel eyes were larger and darker, and reflected light much better than the bald one’s, which were blue-grey luminescent, like his own. He saw an orange flicker—a flame, perhaps—and the familiar flash of light. His body distorted in her eyes, and then the image froze. He pulled back and peered at the Formling. “End of memory?” 

The conjoined bodies bent forward with an exaggerated nod. He thanked them, then fell back with a sigh. Grasping at straws was a time-honored tradition, but it only ever paid in half measures. Perhaps he could risk sending a message to the Inquisitor and ask her directly. She couldn't have gone far, could she have? How long was he asleep the second time? 

The rune was almost spent, and he didn’t have the strength to renew it, let alone find a way out of his cacophonous tomb. If the gods had interfered with his death, that was one thing—in that case, he ought to try. If it had been a mortal, however, or a mortal’s greed…his mouth tightened. Fuck them.

The Formling popped into his field of vision and leaned over him curiously. Ameridan had always possessed a stomach for the antics of spirits—sometimes in the Fade he would even join them—but this one gave his nerves a run for their money. He did his best to avoid discouraging it with a strangled yelp, and redirected the urge to a question, instead. “Have you considered your purpose?” 

The two elf heads tilted, doll-like in their perfect tandem, and perhaps...perhaps he could wince. Just a little. The spirit pondered, then shifted into his likeness, and Ameridan shook his head. “Do not recommend, friend, unless you prefer Despair.” The it-him frowned and pointed to itself. Once more, he shook his head no. “You would twist the moment my mind begins to wander.”

It poofed back into wisp form and returned to its restless shifting across the room. Ameridan had no energy left to comfort it. His voice was barely recognizable when he woke, and now it was completely gone. As hungry as he was, he was even thirstier—where had Valor got to? His old friend knew how to conjure and cast without becoming a spell _._ He was sure the little Formling would try its best, but he could hardly drink from its very self. It’d be like a possession of sorts, except without the spirit’s guiding intent; molten lyrium was more appealing as a foodstuff, and he wondered if it wouldn’t have much the same effect. 

_Telanadas._ Nothing is inevitable, until it is. Perhaps he would die here, after all. Perhaps...perhaps the gods would be content with his willingness to follow their whim, and let him go. His eyes drifted shut. A warm breeze filtered through his disheveled hair, and his nose prickled with humidity. It was the lagoon he and Haron had played in as children, and later, where he and Telana had first—

 _Telanadas._ His lids had grown heavy, but he wrested them open and waited for his vision to clear. It did not. He crawled closer...or had it crawled nearer? A tussock of silky grass appeared beneath his head, and he settled into it, breathing deeply of the green. Shorebirds piped in the distance, and soft, lapping waves advanced and retreated over his mind, leaving it smooth and warm, just like the sand beneath their blanket when they first made love. 

_Telanadas._ A fish splashed, having an evening feed. Nightsongs filled the air, avian, insectoid, and the awkward vivacity of frogs. He had admired those most as a child, the little creatures which underwent three different selves and lived their best lives every time. Haron had giggled like mad when he heard. _“All hail the mightiest hunter! Ser Ameridan the Frog!”_

“Can you see anything, Zosi?”

 _Amahn banal._

“Nothing, Lacey, it’s dark! You’re a dwarf, see with your ears!”

“Don’t be stupid,” the voice laughed, and a few others joined in. “Of all the ways to outdo herself, _obviously_ she’d choose that one!”

_Telanadas._

“Oi, over here! Bring the light!” 

_Telanadas._

“Maker’s breath, it’s an elf!” 

“Is he dead?”

_Telanadas._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‣ Ameridan actually spent seven ages outside of time. He is sure to swear when he finds out.  
> ‣ We used the illustration from Dragon Age Heroes for Ameridan's character design, instead of the DAI game design.  
> ‣ _Telanadas_ = Nothing is inevitable (canon). From _tela_ : the negative form of “to be,” and _nadas_ : “inevitable.”  
> ‣ _Amahn banal_ = Here [there is] nothingness. 
> 
> **Chapter Credits:**  
>  Lead Writer—Eranehn  
> Co-Writer—Paraparadigm


	3. Ch. 3

Bram stood at the edge of the Avvar village and tugged on the hem of his doublet in a vain attempt to make it cover his impressively filthy trousers. He wasn’t altogether certain whether this one concession to formality hid his otherwise sorry state or only accentuated it, but there hadn’t been time to change into anything more presentable.

Lieutenant Farrow, left to oversee the Inquisition’s outpost, had arrived to Bram’s new dig site with an expression of no-nonsense efficiency. “Best head back quickly, Professor. There’s an Avvar waiting to see you.”

Bram had started at that, almost dropping the brush he had been using to work his way around what was likely a still mostly intact staff tip—not the typical silverite he had come to expect in the region, but the rather more unusual lazurite. It was of clearly superior craftsmanship, too, even the little he could see.

“Is he… she…W-why?” he stammered, and then covered it with a laugh about as convincing as a Ferelden philosopher and only a smidge more sincere than an Orlesian courtier. “Are they _friendly_?” he finally managed.

Farrow’s lips twitched slightly. “I wouldn’t say friendly, but he hasn’t walloped anyone with that huge hammer of his yet, so I suppose that counts for something. It’s that fellow from the swamps Her Worship left to negotiate with the locals.” He shifted from foot to foot. “It’s been going well, apparently, because they’re holding a feast—and you’re invited.”

Bram stared. “Me? Why _me?_ ”

“Above my paygrade, I’m afraid. Come along, best you get there before sunset.”

At Bram’s feeble protest that the Tevinter encampment was of great historical significance, and that the fickle weather of the Basin could turn on a moment’s notice and irreparably damage the balk, Farrow grimaced in entirely unconvincing apology and jerked his head towards the bristling palisade of the Inquisition outpost.

“Whatever’s left, I doubt it’ll dig itself out without you, professor, not to worry. Besides, her Worship said we should keep Stone-Bear Hold happy.”

“I fail to see how my presence will add to their cheer,” Bram tried—then gave up, hoisted himself out of the trench, dispensed a few terse instructions to the rest of his small team who all looked like they would stop working the moment he was out of view, and trudged after the elf.

The Avvar charged with accompanying Bram to the Hold had introduced himself as Skywatcher, but beyond this initial concession to politeness, he had remained monosyllabic. Bram observed him out of the corner of his eyes as they left the camp, but aside from an occasional glimpse at the sky, the fellow appeared entirely uninterested in either his surroundings or his companion. He was a towering giant of a man of undecipherable age—anywhere between forty and sixty, Bram guessed—and what little of his face showed beneath his mask and warpaint was grooved with wear, weather, and an assortment of old scars. He had offered Bram a shallow incline of his head by way of greetings, and, introductions thus concluded with nothing more than an exchange of titles, spun on his heel and lumbered down the muddy path.

A drizzle, cold and omnipresent, shrouded the gangly trees in early dusk. Bram drew the hood of his cloak almost down to his nose and tried to ignore the chill creeping through the worn soles of his boots. Summer in the Basin was wetter and cooler than he had anticipated, but the inevitable five o’clock mist that rarely resolved itself into full-fledged rain always seemed to exacerbate the slump of late afternoon exhaustion that fogged his thoughts and leadened his limbs before, on lucky days, it eased off come evening. Bram remedied this whenever he could with a short nap at his desk, or on the cot he had installed at the dig site, and his crew had come to accept this quirk without too many raised eyebrows.

He ruminated as he walked. His thoughts sank, as they always did when he was confronted with the prospect of an unfamiliar social situation, into a spiraling vortex of alternative scenarios. It always began attractively enough— _anything but this_ —but with each loop he accumulated caveats like a boot accumulates layers of caked mud. He could have been sitting in his comfortable, if somewhat cluttered office at the University of Orlais, overlooking the lush greenery of the cloistered courtyard where the faculty from the College met every fortnight to sip expensive Antivan brandy and nibble on overwrought canapés, all under the guise of discussing so-and-so’s latest findings but, more pragmatically, engaging in a bit of flattery for the latest wealthy patron who fancied himself a scholar. Or he could be dredging up uninspired barbs at one of the more popular salons, watching with a strained, fixed smile the glittering parade of dazzlers and flaneurs who sought to outmatch each other with the season’s latest take on scintillating wit. He had never learned to fit in, exactly, with his Starkhaven accent and his irreparably gauche lack of cynicism, but he had been tolerated in these viper pits, and even invited quite regularly, like an endearingly inoffensive adornment to complement the arrangements of fangs and forked tongues. Or, more likely, he would be stooping over his desk in dim light, the squeaks of his quill giving voice to the rising despondence of marking the tower of lackluster, instantly forgettable, sycophantic diatribes that passed for his students’ essays. Few ventured beyond the readings, even fewer made interesting connections or any attempt at scholarship, and almost none took any intellectual risks whatsoever, the cumulative result of which was a half-digested salad of disjointed concepts, poorly remembered dates, and hackneyed ideas plagiarized and repeated so many times in an endless chain of regurgitation that they occasionally struck on originality by sheer accident of numbers, and by virtue of compounded misinterpretations.

None of these presented particularly desirable alternatives, but at least the drudgery and petty upheavals of his academic life were a known entity. This Avvar feast was not, and his inexplicable invitation to it wasn’t either. Yet, the Inquisition had shouldered the financing of his continued research and he wasn’t naive enough to assume that Inquisitor Lavellan’s interest in his scholarly pursuits could account for it entirely. Either way, he was in no position to excuse himself, especially when summoned by proxy through one of the Inquisitor’s very own Avvar agents. He never had a particularly good eye for political games—that had always been Lotte’s forte, and his older sister made underhanded social maneuvering look effortless, like everything else she did. So, no doubt, she would have been able to explain the mysterious replenishment of his excavation budget without devolving into Bram’s tendency to suspect subterfuge.

His thoughts meandered to Lotte’s missive, delivered by bird that very morning and hastily tucked into the strongbox where he kept all his important correspondence. It had left him restive and unmoored, at once longing to return to Starkhaven and dreading the prospect, to check on whether her epistolary omissions were equal to his gnawing worry. Of course she had the affairs of the estate handled, again with that apparently effortless ease, and poise, and all those other elusive attributes Bram and his other siblings had never troubled themselves with mastering, let alone perfecting. Lotte was dutiful enough for the five of them, and each of her judicious, measured steps—her riskless but always successful investments; her carefully cultivated network of perfectly innocuous friends and acquaintances; her modest collection of conventional interests; and her marriage, for Maker’s sake—all had an aura of utmost propriety, and the effect of keeping a fresh layer of lacquer on the Kenric name. But wherever there were lacquered names, the problem of heirs loomed beneath the polish. This time, Lotte had broached the subject herself, which left Bram feeling marooned in his own abdicated guilt. He had always suspected that her marriage was one of those comfortably tepid arrangements which, should all proceed according to plan, would cohere into mutually respectful disregard when a child was successfully produced, while the rest of the family breathed a sigh of mildly guilty relief, liberated to pursue their own passions.

He wiped the mist from his chin and squinted into the gloom, not seeing much aside from the vaguely sinister tree trunks. She never burdened him with her difficulties unless he pried, and as the years went by, he had grown increasingly craven about the topic, and therefore pried less and less.

“Won’t find it, lowlander.”

Bram practically jumped out of his boots. He stumbled over a treacherous root, caught himself at the last moment, somehow failed to bite his tongue, though it was a near miss, and found himself being righted by the Avvar giant. Blood drummed in his ears as he regained his footing, and his lips formed a polite “ _I beg your pardon?_ ” just a moment ahead of the rest of him, which was quite busy silently wailing “ _what in the Void-”_

“I said—whatever answer you think you’re looking for, you won’t find it in the Basin.” The man’s dark eyes narrowed in the slits of the mask, but the lower half of his face remained inscrutable. “Never been to a _sumbl_ before?”

It wasn’t exactly a question. Bram rummaged through his store of hastily learned Avvar terminology, most of which he had entirely failed to retain, but this particular word had come with a rather detailed and surprisingly good quality xylograph—so it had left an imprint, so to speak. “Never had the pleasure, no,” he said, absolutely hating how fastidious he sounded at that moment.

The Avvar’s stance seemed to soften a fraction. Somewhere to their right, in the thickening darkness, a bird let out an unpleasantly whiny screech, like a distressed infant. The call never failed to prickle Bram’s nape with goosebumps, even though, over the months of his sojourn, he’d begun to think of it with more annoyance than outright terror.

“There will be trials,” the Avvar warned a bit too neutrally. “It is tradition. Being a guest of the Hold, you may decline to participate. If you wish,” he added, and Bram was sure he heard a note of menace beneath the careful equanimity.

He swallowed a bit too thickly, suddenly realizing he was absolutely parched and painfully hungry. When had his last meal been? “I…” He collected the scraps of whatever passed for his composure these days, and cleared his throat. “I am admittedly a stranger, and unfamiliar with your people’s customs…” He trailed off, waiting for his companion to supply a name. When no name came, he amended with “Skywatcher,” and hoped it would do the trick.

“That you are, lowlander,” the Avvar confirmed. “You are here at the Thane’s behest, and no one will challenge your mettle. Your knowledge, such as it is, is another matter.”

Bram tried to parse this statement for its underlying meaning, but wherever the giant’s rhetorical maneuvering was meant to lead, he was utterly failing to follow. Was there something about his latest research that had offended the local Hold? Surely, he would have been informed of it had his excavation infringed upon some local religious prohibition. He had carefully selected the old Tevinter encampment after a strangely tense discussion with Seeker Pentaghast, who had, with all the weight of her title and birthright—not to mention the Inquisition’s authority and sizable coffers—imparted upon him that he would be financed for as long as he did not disturb the ruin where the Hakkonites had kept the dragon. Not until the Inquisition explicitly authorized it, in any case. Under the Seeker’s preemptively incinerating glare, Bram had found himself swallowing his resentment along with his puzzlement, though not his reasonable protest that shifting targets mid-project would lead to delays in publication; and that truly, if he could only examine Inquisitor Ameridan’s resting place, it would be an immeasurable boon to current scholarly understanding of the Inquisition’s history, and, of course, the _present_ Inquisition must have an interest in a firmer grasp of its own past… And so forth.

“ _This should be enough to get your started,”_ the Seeker had cut in with steely stubbornness before depositing a rather large strongbox on his desk with a weighty thunk. _“We will send word if anything changes_ , _Professor._ _Until then, I strongly recommend you expand your horizons._ ”

And that had been the end of it.

“My primary area of scholarship is rather specialized,” Bram offered presently, but the Avvar simply watched him from under his mask, impassive. “Surely, it would be of no great interest to the Thane, considering the focus on early Chantry history.”

“Not for me to assert what is and isn’t of interest to Thane Sun-Hair, lowlander,” the man rumbled, with just a note of… Something. Amusement, perhaps? Some manner of private joke all the more droll for Bram’s exclusion from it? He had the feeling there would be more of those before the evening was over.

“Certainly.” He cast his eyes to the rain-laden skies, feeling suddenly forlorn in the dwindling twilight, forlorn and terribly home-sick, though for what home he couldn’t rightly articulate. “I will, of course, happily be of service, in whatever way the Hold deems necessary. Shall we proceed?”

They proceeded.

After their gloomy, largely monosyllabic journey, the feast hall was blinding and deafening, bright with flickering firelight and thick with the roar of conversation. The smell of roasting meat filled Bram’s nostrils and twisted his stomach in a plaintive twinge. He shrugged out of his travel cloak—it had begun to steam the second they had stepped over the threshold. He discarded it atop a pile of equivalently used furs, and looked to his Avvar guide for help.

“Steel your rattling knees, Learned,” the Skywatcher counseled with another rumbling chuckle, and motioned with his chin towards the enormous table, at least forty people deep on each side, stretching the length of the longhouse towards a raised dais. Bram fidgeted with the hem of his damp doublet.

“You’ll want to pay homage to the Thane. Mind yourself around the milk liquor.” With that final piece of wisdom thus dispensed, he was off, slapping backs and exchanging thundering greetings and a few rather forceful embraces, with men and women alike.

Bram watched his guide make his way down the hall. The Avvar selected an empty seat on the left-hand bench, a few heads away from a diminutive woman in bulky fur armor. She lounged in a thorny throne at the head of the table in a somnolent sprawl that reminded him of a mountain cat lazing in the sun.

He searched for an empty spot, preferably somewhere unobtrusive enough to observe without drawing too much attention, but heads turned and eyes fastened on him, and the din of conversation quieted. Bram felt heat creep into his cheeks. He cleared his throat, and contemplated the appropriateness of smiling, or waving—or, Maker preserve him, bowing, but how, exactly, with how much of an incline? His mind drew an utter blank on Avvar greeting customs and he took an instinctive step backward. Then the wind was knocked out of him as something—or someone—collided with his back. “Andraste’s holy kn-” he wheezed, then swallowed the rest and turned to look at his assailant.

The girl—no, the woman, he’d mistaken her wide-set eyes and heart-shaped face for youth, but the illusion was dispelled the moment she arched her brows—regarded him with an expression of mild, slightly abstracted puzzlement.

“Why are you milling about on the threshold, lowlander?” She had a pleasant voice, melodious in that quiet, poised way that reminded him of Lotte. “It is an ill-advised place, as surely you must know, all the more so during a feast.” At what was undoubtedly his pained expression, her eyebrows knitted around a little vertical wrinkle, and she pointed with her chin. “You’ve not been welcomed yet?”

Bram mustered a sheepish smile. “To be honest with you, I’m not quite sure?”

“Come then. The longer you loom, the more they’ll stare.” A little smile curved her lips, but she seemed terribly grave otherwise, serious and, Bram thought, a little sad.

He followed, immensely relieved at this Maker-sent deliverance from his otherwise awkward debut. This was the precise reason he had never been interested in the contemporary period. By and large, and barring the occasional questionably authentic treatise on the bedroom habits of a famous historical figure he’d come across, read perfunctorily, and promptly shelved as unusable—though some of the ones penned about the First Inquisitor had been rather colorful, if logistically implausible—dead men dispensed no embarrassment, nor collected offense.

He had hoped his new acquaintance would usher him to a seat, preferably in the general vicinity of a food that looked familiar enough to eat, but she strode forth until they were level with the throne and the woman occupying it. A pair of dark eyes narrowed at him in undisguised shrewdness. Bram swallowed, pondered smiling, thought better of it, and shifted from foot to foot instead.

“Welcome to Stone-Bear Hold, lowlander. I know what name you bring, but it occurs to me that you do not know mine.”

Bram blinked. “Thane Svarah Sun-Hair,” he said cautiously, hoping the answer was correct, and that he was not butchering the pronunciation, “I am greatly honored by your invitation. The Inquisition…” The Inquisition, what, precisely? He stalled. “The Skywatcher…”

“Delivered the message so the Gods could bring you here to share in the bounty they saw fit to send us before Winter locks his jaws on the Frostback. Aye. As is the way of it.” She leaned back and took him in, openly evaluative, then she shifted her gaze to the woman at his side. “Gyda. I had hoped we would see you. I trust all went well with Calidan?”

“Well enough, Thane.”

Bram’s eyes darted between the two, but he chose not to dwell on the glaring omission of… well. Whatever had been glaringly omitted for the occasion.

“Too long,” the Thane noted, waiting out the ensuing silence.

“Not as long as I had feared, but yes.”

Before Bram could even attempt to decipher this cryptic gibberish, Svarah Sun-Hair returned her attention to him. “I hear you are a hunter of history, Learned. We too sing the songs of great heroes, so that their names may be remembered, even as their souls move through the Land of Dreams or else return to us once more. You serve this lowlander Inquisition, do you not?”

“I would not say _serve_ , Thane.” He should have nodded and stayed quiet, but his professional pride chose that moment to spring into action—if ever there was a more miserable time for it, he’d be hard-pressed to find one, but here he was. “There are certainly scholars who would refashion the facts to fit with the interests of those who shoulder the finances, but I have…” His course-correction died on his lips, crushed by the evident pomposity of what would come next. What did an Avvar Thane care about his scholarly integrity?

To his utter surprise, she nodded in curt approval. “Good, then. And if you do not serve them but hunt your prey with vigilance and courage, then you will follow it to where it shelters, and not go weak-boned at risking the judgement of those who traipse on Avvar land and yet declare where one can or cannot go, aye?” She leaned in. “I am told that a great hero of your people fell in the place where Hakkon Winterbreath writhed with the fury of his imprisonment, and I would have someone who knows of this man—and would know him from his corruption—check on the matter. Seems to me that the Gods have traced the path for you, Bram Kenric.” After a short pause, she added, “Gyda will guide you, and assist you in your inquiry.”

“I will...what?” The shock on the woman’s face was so profound that Bram momentarily forgot his own confusion.

“Something harries the Hold and displeases the Gods. If it is what I suspect it is, then you will send the restless dead to the Lady, Pathfinder, in the proper way. And release the maddened one who seized him.” She leaned forward, her gaze sharp and calculating. “The Augur claims it is nothing, the lowlanders claim it is nothing. But nothing doesn’t come with trouble on its heels. You will do this, and we will all have our queries satisfied.” She gestured at the table. “It has been said. Eat and drink and make merry, Learned, for the months of plenty are shorter than the months of dearth. You will set out in one day’s time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‣ "Sumbl"—"feast" in Old High German which I'm using interchangeably with some other linguistic borrowings for the Avvar
> 
> **Chapter Credits:**  
>  Lead Writer—Paraparadigm  
> Co-Writer—Eranehn


End file.
